CRM: Jet Sales
Initially, CRM-systems were created specifically for sales. The software group, designed to facilitate the work of salespeople, was called sales force automation (SFA) - automation of sales staff. Actually, it is from this fact that one of the oldest and most famous systems in the world — Salesforce — got its name. But management did not stand still - in modern sales, the client became at the forefront, CRM systems (customer relationship management systems) became more popular than SFA (but not equal to them!). At this point, people usually talk a long time about loyalty, predictive marketing and other PR things, but the message is much simpler. Whatever we create, be it a corporate software, a game, an application, or a data center, it needs to be sold, quickly overtaking competitors. And we, programmers, this is not very good. More precisely, it does not work at all.
But we can help our salespeople. For example, create or implement CRM. This is how RegionSoft CRM appeared and appeared - as an internal tool of the company, which today would be called a system integrator. For 10 years, the system has grown, has experienced six major releases and helps tens of thousands of salespeople, purchasers, logisticians, commercial directors and supportrs. We know a lot about CRM, no less about IT sales, and we are sure that we need to talk about this at Habré - we have discussed here many times what and how to create, but they rarely and shyly talk about how to sell. And there is nothing to be ashamed of - this is a key business process in any company.
There are hundreds of KPIs for a sales manager and dozens of sales methodologies. Some require lengthy negotiations, others are valuable for a short sales cycle, others are based on analytics, the fourth is based on kickbacks. Here is a list showing that you are doing well with sales:
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This is partly a joke. Indeed, growth in sales and revenues is considered to be a generally accepted indicator of the effectiveness of sales managers. However, this list looks different.
At first glance, it seems that these indicators are easy to provide. But this is not so - the achievement of each of these points requires serious work, combining both sales and analytics. In the past few years, sales success has begun to demand the use of an appropriate level of automation - CRM-systems for sales, which are included in the cycle and give effect. Thus, according to a survey by the aforementioned Salesforce, after the introduction of CRM, sales growth is plus 29%, salesman productivity grows by 34%, accuracy of forecasts and plans increases by 42%. But our survey for Habr (you can still participate ) showed that 57% of respondents use CRM only for sales, and 37% automate everything. The most popular options are: contacts and clients (cards) - 79%, tasks and projects - 56%, schedulers and calendars - 56%, business processes - 56%, paper forms and documents - 47%. At the same time, 36% of respondents admit that the situation has improved after the introduction, only 4% have worsened, the rest admitted that they do not have information or did not measure the effect.
The key concept in sales is the sales cycle. This is the lifetime of a commercial opportunity, measured in units of time (days, weeks, months). This is the period in which you have a chance to sell a product or service, overtaking its competitors. And the more competitive the market, the more critical the shortening of the cycle becomes. Moreover, it is important to ensure that the stages within the sales cycle itself do not stretch and a competitor cannot get ahead of you at any one of the time segments. Effective sales rate management is possible only in a CRM system.
Here is the sales cycle in general terms (the image is clickable):
Of course, much depends on the approach to sales, but the main stages are unchanged and CRM must fit into each of them, providing information, notification, communication, reporting, automating the sales person’s work at every stage: using ready-made templates, telephony, reminders, planners, business -processes, etc.
CRM-systems automate and accelerate the work of a sales manager in three main areas.
Consider these areas in more detail and try to build the overall picture of the interaction of sales and sales automation tools - CRM-system.
First and foremost, what a CRM system is doing is reducing the sales cycle and increasing their speed. Each contact with the client represents a commercial opportunity - a chance to move to the next stage of the sale and eventually successfully close the deal. Accordingly, you need to have time to find out the needs of the client, present the product or service to him, answer questions, prepare a formalized offer, conclude an agreement, issue an invoice and complete the sale process. At the same time, in almost any market, your competitors are not asleep - you must have come across a situation where a client directly stated that he was considering other options. In addition, the tightening of any stage can cool the customer's heat - then he will change his mind or postpone the purchase indefinitely. And this is a lost commercial opportunity and benefit.
And where there is competition - there everything ultimately decides the time, the speed of the process. The sales cycle, which is formed after the accumulation of a certain amount of experience, allows you to quite accurately estimate the moment when your buyer is ready to make a final decision on the purchase - this knowledge is priceless. Automation of sales through CRM opens up excellent opportunities to work with the cycle:
In the theory of sales there are classic shares of the processes within the cycle. During these processes, the manager applies his skills to lead the customer to purchase.
The problem is that one manager of such cycles is not one or two, but many, and they can be of different lengths and be at different stages, and therefore require the use of different skills. The human brain is difficult to navigate in multiple cycles. And the presence of a paper notebook, stickers or Word does not change the situation. For the correct management of multiple sales cycles need an intelligent system - CRM. The user enters the data in a timely manner, and she processes them and helps to navigate the sales cycle, make contact with customers in time and complete the processes.
In turn, if the client sees the commitment and punctuality of the manager, receives all the necessary information in time, he has no reason to go to the competitors and he makes the purchase decision more quickly. Sales cycles are completed faster, several cycles are being serviced at the same time, sales are getting bigger - revenue is growing.
CRM-system helps sales teams to prioritize tasks and actions aimed at working with the client. In addition, for example, the RegionSoft CRM has built-in opportunities for communication with contractors, without departing from CRM: telephony (by the way, we do not impose an IP-telephony operator, but only provide our own SIPphone, integration with Asterisk and, if necessary, VoIP Connector telephony server) , Skype, a native email client (through it you can conduct business correspondence or do mailings - it can withstand all the loads; unlike some CRM, mail goes perfectly both ways and can be used as the main one). The CRM-system sends reminders for tasks and events, it is very difficult to miss something important. In the visual scheduler, the manager can visually assess the workload of the day and easily drag the overlapping tasks with the mouse. At the same time, the properties of reminders do not change - the task does not need to be edited.
CRM adjusts to the working mode. Of course, if it is properly designed by the developer. For example, we in RegionSoft CRM made a KPI monitor, which shows progress bars to fulfill planned targets: each employee sees his own KPI monitor, and the head - “monitors” of everyone. And when it is clear that the matter is moving and how exactly it is moving - it is more pleasant to work, plus you can redistribute forces to lagging tasks. This is a great assistant for a sales manager, who always has many different tasks, and it’s impossible to keep track of them.
A CRM system is an interactive sales assistant. Perhaps the most favorite question of our customers: “Does the card rise when you call?” This is not by chance - customer information available during a call, and CRM recognizing the caller, are expensive because they allow a) to call by name, b ) demonstrate that you remember the history of relationships. So, these a) + b) = a sense of importance and exclusivity of the client, a significant factor in the decision to purchase. Call recording allows you to remember an important nuance, resolve the conflict, get trained on your own mistakes (invaluable for beginners!).
A CRM system is a tool for exchanging information between departments of a company. In the small and medium business all departments are tightly linked: commercial service (sales, marketing, logistics), accounting, production (development, etc.), technical support. Information constantly passes between them, and often this circulation takes a lot of time, data is re-requested, updated, periods change, etc. In CRM, employees can independently view the necessary information with access rights.
The value of CRM is that much of the information automatically passes between services. That is why our team is strongly annoyed by vendors and consultants who claim that CRM is only for sales. Modern CRM-systems are simply obliged to be able to work with a warehouse, transport, delivery, and so on. upon request of the client.
For example, if you have a warehouse and RegionSoft CRM is installed, you do not need to carry paper, make calls and write letters: when you make a sale, the goods are automatically deducted from the warehouse and the manager can form closing documentation. In case the goods or components are running out, you can place an order directly in the CRM system and send it to the supplier. At the same time, everything also works in the opposite direction - the sales manager sees the remains in the warehouses and knows exactly which lot can be shipped, and the marketer can evaluate the speed of movement from the warehouse of various items and decide on a promotion or exclusion of non-moving goods from the range.
CRM-system - the ability to unify the sales process and streamline the work of managers. The system has many ways to build a template procedure to optimize the time of the sales cycle, as well as the distribution of time inside, between the components of the cycle. For example, you can create a business process with regulated time lags and motivate sales people to fit into this chronology. Thus, everything: from a slow, but intelligent seller to a beginner, will adapt to the process, the result will be more stable, productivity will increase.
When such a sales cycle - without automation is not enough. It was worth starting on the first block.
Storage of information. If you try to give a definition of a CRM system in one word, then it will be the word “information”. Its accumulation, storage and processing add value to CRM, which in its class is just related to corporate information systems (CIS). The manager enters the data in the client card and thus forms a pool of information about him. Therefore, it is important that the data are accurate, current and complete. In RegionSoft CRM, we have thought through all the fields of the client card so that it is an object that stores everything: from a phone number to documents and a full history of relationships.
Card companies in the RegionSoft CRM (clickable image) - information that can only be collected about the relationship with the client. If something seems unnecessary to you, you can turn everything off in the system interface settings.
The data accumulated in the CRM-system, are the basis of the sales manager. He can…
... segment customers - make selections according to the necessary parameters and create individual mailings. Recently, the concept of complete personification of proposals has come forward in management and marketing. This is correct, and the CRM system is able to provide the user with all the data for segmentation. For example, you can choose low-income but regular customers and take measures to increase the average bill - at least to offer a discount on re-purchase when the conditions are met.
... to form commercial proposals. In the CRM interface, you can create document templates and load in them data from the nomenclature, price lists, and details of counterparties. This greatly speeds up the paper and preparatory work.
... lead a sales funnel. Conversion (transition from lead to purchase) strongly depends on the industry, product, sales cycle and manager's qualifications. Control of the funnel helps not only to assess the efficiency of salespeople and the department as a whole, but also to find the best practices.
... carry out a plan-actual analysis and generally work with a sales plan. On the basis of historical sales data, the best sales forecast is built and a competent plan is put, the implementation of which can also be viewed in CRM.
In some companies, the sales plan is raised from the ceiling - and this is wrong, especially if the salary depends on KPI. Setting an adequate and feasible plan is the task of management. Be sure to consider seasonality, downtrend or good times. An overstated sales plan can lead to unpleasant consequences, including frank fraud and violations by employees.
In general, with data you can build any analytics and find non-standard or new solutions for the company. But for this to be followed a few simple rules.
Reports, visual implementation of which helps to see the gaps and achievements of the sales team. There are a lot of them (in one RegionSoft CRM there are about 20 sales reports), but there are the main ones, among which are the sales funnel . This report helps to view the progress of customers by sales stages in the context of the desired period of time, manager, industry, etc. The wider the base in relation to the neck, the higher the conversion rate, the better. You can see at what stage most customers are lost and take action. The picture shows a very primitive funnel - in fact, the user can configure any stages of sales in the CRM system (set custom client development steps in directories) and see, for example, how customers fall off during the first call, mailing, coordination of TK and so on. - on the basis of such analytics, it is possible to take measures to increase the level of conversion, working with problem stages.
The speed of sales is the most important indicator, which also falls into the reports of RegionSoft CRM (I again state that similar reports can be in other systems, we just talk specifically about our own). In general, the rate of sales depends on the industry, implementation model, other factors. Each company must know its regulatory duration of the sale process and strive not to exceed the deadlines. Of course, we are talking about standard sales. If we are dealing with complex, so-called long sales in industry, tenders, etc., then it is very difficult to focus on the average value - too many external factors affect the course of the transaction. However, it is always necessary to observe the chronology of the process (remember 50/35/15 above?) And apply those skills that promote progress from stage to stage.
In the table you can see the date of registration of the client and the time of the first sale. The interval between them is the sales cycle. And if you impose on the interval passing the sales funnel and the dynamics of development, you can check the chronology of the stages within the cycle and understand that it takes too much time.
The report shows that the efficiency of one day of work partly correlates backward with the cycle length: the longer the cycle, the lower the efficiency of one day of work. This is not a rule and not a law, but a too long cycle in relation to the company's standard is an alarm signal about the problem that caused such a delay in sales. It is necessary to analyze such cases in detail.
Another important report, which in theory is considered marketing, but in fact corrupt is ABC-analysis , it shows the proportion of customers who bring the highest revenue. Such an analysis must be carried out - so the business receives information about customers with whom it is necessary to work especially carefully, build a loyalty system, give discounts and other bonuses, provide a VIP-manager. It is convenient to view it in a table view and a pie chart view.
Another type of analytical information in sales is aggregated statistics. These are aggregated data, for example, by county, city or industry. They contribute to the assessment of the most promising areas of development, and a comparison of such analysts for different periods gives an estimate of the growth rates of each of the areas. Such reports are interesting to managers and regional managers.
In addition to standard reports in CRM, a user can write his own with the help of a report designer, use filters and save them, or upload data from a CRM system into a spreadsheet editor and build analytics in the required section.
CRM makes it easy to compare the results of historical and current sales and indicators related to sales. Since it stores historical data of the desired depth, it is always possible to compare periods, assess the effects that were at the peak of sales or at the points of fall, establish market trends. These data can form the basis of planning and forecasting - this is the basis for drawing up an adequate and feasible sales plan. You can also accumulate and analyze information by competitors.
Cross-Sell & Upsell is another possibility of a CRM-system for sales. On the basis of information on previously completed transactions, the manager can select a complementary product or service, prepare a commercial offer and send it to the client. In general, the manager’s awareness of the client’s background history and its mention in communication is a sign of the company's high loyalty to its customers. Sales team can track the history of purchases by customers or groups in order to determine a new point of contact in time, to offer additional products or services.
For example, a construction company shipped a brick to build a country house in April. In August, you can offer roofing materials, protective structures before the fall, facing bricks or an iron door at a discount (with or without it, or with a surcharge - here it’s a matter of conscience and seller policy). In fact, the company shares the interest of the client and tries to “help” it - it is very appealing. And valuable data on the customer's purchase profile is collected and stored in CRM.
Better upsell can only be a loyalty program. Despite the disappointing retail forecasts, discount cards, loyalty programs, points and other models of long-term friendship with the buyer continue to work successfully. The reasons for this lie both in the economic and in the psychological plane, but the post is not about that. In CRM discount cards, personal discounts and markups for customers or groups of customers are taken into account, including when creating price lists. By the way, in our case the automation of loyalty programs works with the program complex for automation of hypermarkets - RegionSoft Retail .
Once one of our employees witnessed an interesting conversation in a pharmacy: a pharmacist (A) and a client (K).
A: Is there a card for our network?
K: Oh, I left it at home. What a pity!
A: Well, you have here, in principle, anyway, without a discount.
K: And I am pleased to simply show, as if I am a regular customer of the pharmacy.
A simple example that illustrates everything. Just as we often go to those stores, the cards of which we have, although in the neighboring one everything is cheaper and adjusted for this very loyalty.
Thus, the CRM-system fits perfectly into the sales cycle, provides managers with information, accumulates and maintains the customer base. In general, it performs all the functions assigned to it by sales managers. In short, the CRM-system is definitely a sales friend.
We have already written about the typical difficulties of implementing CRM-systems, and they all apply to the sales department. Moreover, it is from him that they begin. Sales managers often see the CRM of theblood enemy as another tool that will bring in a lot of new work or a new way of control by the bosses. As a rule, those who consider themselves to be hardened sales wolves argue this way, they are used to working with a notebook or remembering all the moves. For them, automation is stress and imaginary loss of time. In fact, if you offer them to use the system and bind all the successes to the new program, psychologically even the most stubborn salespeople get used to the software, and then even begin to love it, as the speed of the operation increases. It’s still one thing to go into a folder, select a form, type in names, compare prices, type in details, add up the totals, and another thing is to generate an invoice automatically and send it immediately by e-mail. I'm not talking about the chains of business processes that turn any routine into a fast and reliable machine.
Another common need for CRM users is to cram their own sales model into the system. Sales of SPIN, long sales, dealer model - according to customers, everything should be taken into account in CRM. And there are dozens of these methodologies! This approach is fundamentally wrong. CRM collects data, stores and unifies the client base, helps to create any tasks and business processes. And for what model do you use such a powerful resource - a matter of imagination and competent management of the company (who really needs it - you can enter a part of the methodology into the business process). CRM vendor in a sober mind and sound memory will never go for revision under any methodology - this is really absurd. At least until the number of these methodologies is reduced to two or three.
In a post, it is not by chance that several times a special emphasis is placed on the speed of sales. CRM automates the sales management process, thereby speeding them up. This is a key value that sales managers need to be aware of, whose task is to enter data, follow the system signals for each of the clients, and apply their persuasion and presentation skills. This approach helps the manager to close the transaction quickly and without error, and therefore, to perform KPI, make a plan and earn more.
So, briefly, what are the benefits of CRM, if it is mostly aimed at sales:
We all love to create the perfect - especially those developers sin. Yes, we all often think that we have created the best product in the world, and the world will soon find out about it by itself. No, it will not know if there are no professionals who promote and sell. And behind them, too, there is a sin - it is a joke about the fact that the sales person needs only ear, mouth and telephone. 2016 , . , CRM-, . , CRM . Feel the difference?
Throughout December, we offer discounts on RegionSoft CRM and all our proprietary software. From December 1 to 15 - 15% and steep terms of installment and rental. We do not have -70% and -90%, because we keep the economically reasonable price for the license, and do not take it from the ceiling.
, — . — 10 3 , . Please reach the end of the survey, just skip any unnecessary items.
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But we can help our salespeople. For example, create or implement CRM. This is how RegionSoft CRM appeared and appeared - as an internal tool of the company, which today would be called a system integrator. For 10 years, the system has grown, has experienced six major releases and helps tens of thousands of salespeople, purchasers, logisticians, commercial directors and supportrs. We know a lot about CRM, no less about IT sales, and we are sure that we need to talk about this at Habré - we have discussed here many times what and how to create, but they rarely and shyly talk about how to sell. And there is nothing to be ashamed of - this is a key business process in any company.
How does the salesman and why does he need CRM?
There are hundreds of KPIs for a sales manager and dozens of sales methodologies. Some require lengthy negotiations, others are valuable for a short sales cycle, others are based on analytics, the fourth is based on kickbacks. Here is a list showing that you are doing well with sales:
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- Your revenue and sales are growing.
- Your revenue and sales are growing.
- Your revenue and sales are growing.
This is partly a joke. Indeed, growth in sales and revenues is considered to be a generally accepted indicator of the effectiveness of sales managers. However, this list looks different.
- You have increased revenues and sales by increasing sales speed - and this is a key focus.
- You have a growing revenue and sales, while the cost does not grow and the proportional level of marketing and advertising costs is maintained.
- Your customer base is expanding, but loyal customers remain.
- The loyalty system works: discount program, cards, mailings, bonuses and discounts. At the same time, sales are even out of stocks and sales.
- You have few complaints and customer complaints.
- You do not have a warehouse glut (if it is supposed to) or any other product you are investing in, but it has not been sold for a long time.
- You do not have a regular staff turnover in sales.
At first glance, it seems that these indicators are easy to provide. But this is not so - the achievement of each of these points requires serious work, combining both sales and analytics. In the past few years, sales success has begun to demand the use of an appropriate level of automation - CRM-systems for sales, which are included in the cycle and give effect. Thus, according to a survey by the aforementioned Salesforce, after the introduction of CRM, sales growth is plus 29%, salesman productivity grows by 34%, accuracy of forecasts and plans increases by 42%. But our survey for Habr (you can still participate ) showed that 57% of respondents use CRM only for sales, and 37% automate everything. The most popular options are: contacts and clients (cards) - 79%, tasks and projects - 56%, schedulers and calendars - 56%, business processes - 56%, paper forms and documents - 47%. At the same time, 36% of respondents admit that the situation has improved after the introduction, only 4% have worsened, the rest admitted that they do not have information or did not measure the effect.
The key concept in sales is the sales cycle. This is the lifetime of a commercial opportunity, measured in units of time (days, weeks, months). This is the period in which you have a chance to sell a product or service, overtaking its competitors. And the more competitive the market, the more critical the shortening of the cycle becomes. Moreover, it is important to ensure that the stages within the sales cycle itself do not stretch and a competitor cannot get ahead of you at any one of the time segments. Effective sales rate management is possible only in a CRM system.
Here is the sales cycle in general terms (the image is clickable):
Of course, much depends on the approach to sales, but the main stages are unchanged and CRM must fit into each of them, providing information, notification, communication, reporting, automating the sales person’s work at every stage: using ready-made templates, telephony, reminders, planners, business -processes, etc.
How does a CRM system help sell?
CRM-systems automate and accelerate the work of a sales manager in three main areas.
- Operational work - workflows and procedures.
- Work with information and reporting - collecting, storing and analyzing data.
- Additional sales - working with customers for the purpose of pre-sales and repeat business.
Consider these areas in more detail and try to build the overall picture of the interaction of sales and sales automation tools - CRM-system.
Operational work
First and foremost, what a CRM system is doing is reducing the sales cycle and increasing their speed. Each contact with the client represents a commercial opportunity - a chance to move to the next stage of the sale and eventually successfully close the deal. Accordingly, you need to have time to find out the needs of the client, present the product or service to him, answer questions, prepare a formalized offer, conclude an agreement, issue an invoice and complete the sale process. At the same time, in almost any market, your competitors are not asleep - you must have come across a situation where a client directly stated that he was considering other options. In addition, the tightening of any stage can cool the customer's heat - then he will change his mind or postpone the purchase indefinitely. And this is a lost commercial opportunity and benefit.
And where there is competition - there everything ultimately decides the time, the speed of the process. The sales cycle, which is formed after the accumulation of a certain amount of experience, allows you to quite accurately estimate the moment when your buyer is ready to make a final decision on the purchase - this knowledge is priceless. Automation of sales through CRM opens up excellent opportunities to work with the cycle:
- saves and displays a list of unclosed business opportunities (transaction states);
- fixes the cycle length (below we will tell about a special report on the speed of sales);
- allows you to control the length of each of the stages of the sales cycle;
- helps to identify the causes of loss of a client at certain stages.
In the theory of sales there are classic shares of the processes within the cycle. During these processes, the manager applies his skills to lead the customer to purchase.
The problem is that one manager of such cycles is not one or two, but many, and they can be of different lengths and be at different stages, and therefore require the use of different skills. The human brain is difficult to navigate in multiple cycles. And the presence of a paper notebook, stickers or Word does not change the situation. For the correct management of multiple sales cycles need an intelligent system - CRM. The user enters the data in a timely manner, and she processes them and helps to navigate the sales cycle, make contact with customers in time and complete the processes.
In turn, if the client sees the commitment and punctuality of the manager, receives all the necessary information in time, he has no reason to go to the competitors and he makes the purchase decision more quickly. Sales cycles are completed faster, several cycles are being serviced at the same time, sales are getting bigger - revenue is growing.
CRM-system helps sales teams to prioritize tasks and actions aimed at working with the client. In addition, for example, the RegionSoft CRM has built-in opportunities for communication with contractors, without departing from CRM: telephony (by the way, we do not impose an IP-telephony operator, but only provide our own SIPphone, integration with Asterisk and, if necessary, VoIP Connector telephony server) , Skype, a native email client (through it you can conduct business correspondence or do mailings - it can withstand all the loads; unlike some CRM, mail goes perfectly both ways and can be used as the main one). The CRM-system sends reminders for tasks and events, it is very difficult to miss something important. In the visual scheduler, the manager can visually assess the workload of the day and easily drag the overlapping tasks with the mouse. At the same time, the properties of reminders do not change - the task does not need to be edited.
CRM adjusts to the working mode. Of course, if it is properly designed by the developer. For example, we in RegionSoft CRM made a KPI monitor, which shows progress bars to fulfill planned targets: each employee sees his own KPI monitor, and the head - “monitors” of everyone. And when it is clear that the matter is moving and how exactly it is moving - it is more pleasant to work, plus you can redistribute forces to lagging tasks. This is a great assistant for a sales manager, who always has many different tasks, and it’s impossible to keep track of them.
A CRM system is an interactive sales assistant. Perhaps the most favorite question of our customers: “Does the card rise when you call?” This is not by chance - customer information available during a call, and CRM recognizing the caller, are expensive because they allow a) to call by name, b ) demonstrate that you remember the history of relationships. So, these a) + b) = a sense of importance and exclusivity of the client, a significant factor in the decision to purchase. Call recording allows you to remember an important nuance, resolve the conflict, get trained on your own mistakes (invaluable for beginners!).
A CRM system is a tool for exchanging information between departments of a company. In the small and medium business all departments are tightly linked: commercial service (sales, marketing, logistics), accounting, production (development, etc.), technical support. Information constantly passes between them, and often this circulation takes a lot of time, data is re-requested, updated, periods change, etc. In CRM, employees can independently view the necessary information with access rights.
The value of CRM is that much of the information automatically passes between services. That is why our team is strongly annoyed by vendors and consultants who claim that CRM is only for sales. Modern CRM-systems are simply obliged to be able to work with a warehouse, transport, delivery, and so on. upon request of the client.
For example, if you have a warehouse and RegionSoft CRM is installed, you do not need to carry paper, make calls and write letters: when you make a sale, the goods are automatically deducted from the warehouse and the manager can form closing documentation. In case the goods or components are running out, you can place an order directly in the CRM system and send it to the supplier. At the same time, everything also works in the opposite direction - the sales manager sees the remains in the warehouses and knows exactly which lot can be shipped, and the marketer can evaluate the speed of movement from the warehouse of various items and decide on a promotion or exclusion of non-moving goods from the range.
CRM-system - the ability to unify the sales process and streamline the work of managers. The system has many ways to build a template procedure to optimize the time of the sales cycle, as well as the distribution of time inside, between the components of the cycle. For example, you can create a business process with regulated time lags and motivate sales people to fit into this chronology. Thus, everything: from a slow, but intelligent seller to a beginner, will adapt to the process, the result will be more stable, productivity will increase.
When such a sales cycle - without automation is not enough. It was worth starting on the first block.
Work with information and reporting
Storage of information. If you try to give a definition of a CRM system in one word, then it will be the word “information”. Its accumulation, storage and processing add value to CRM, which in its class is just related to corporate information systems (CIS). The manager enters the data in the client card and thus forms a pool of information about him. Therefore, it is important that the data are accurate, current and complete. In RegionSoft CRM, we have thought through all the fields of the client card so that it is an object that stores everything: from a phone number to documents and a full history of relationships.
Card companies in the RegionSoft CRM (clickable image) - information that can only be collected about the relationship with the client. If something seems unnecessary to you, you can turn everything off in the system interface settings.
The data accumulated in the CRM-system, are the basis of the sales manager. He can…
... segment customers - make selections according to the necessary parameters and create individual mailings. Recently, the concept of complete personification of proposals has come forward in management and marketing. This is correct, and the CRM system is able to provide the user with all the data for segmentation. For example, you can choose low-income but regular customers and take measures to increase the average bill - at least to offer a discount on re-purchase when the conditions are met.
... to form commercial proposals. In the CRM interface, you can create document templates and load in them data from the nomenclature, price lists, and details of counterparties. This greatly speeds up the paper and preparatory work.
... lead a sales funnel. Conversion (transition from lead to purchase) strongly depends on the industry, product, sales cycle and manager's qualifications. Control of the funnel helps not only to assess the efficiency of salespeople and the department as a whole, but also to find the best practices.
... carry out a plan-actual analysis and generally work with a sales plan. On the basis of historical sales data, the best sales forecast is built and a competent plan is put, the implementation of which can also be viewed in CRM.
In some companies, the sales plan is raised from the ceiling - and this is wrong, especially if the salary depends on KPI. Setting an adequate and feasible plan is the task of management. Be sure to consider seasonality, downtrend or good times. An overstated sales plan can lead to unpleasant consequences, including frank fraud and violations by employees.
In general, with data you can build any analytics and find non-standard or new solutions for the company. But for this to be followed a few simple rules.
- Collect accurate information - carefully check the entered details, do not include unreliable data or data that raise doubts. The worst that can be is to think out the information. For example, a client calls you from a number with a Moscow code, and you do not specify his city, append “Moscow”. And he called via IP-telephony, he sits in Vladivostok, and the next time you call him at night. Contact may not work out.
- Collect complete information - the more information about the client is collected, the deeper the analytics and easier the operational work. If a lead flows into a potential customer state, try to collect as much data as possible. Do not forget that some of the necessary information can be found in open sources.
- Collecting up-to-date information means collecting it on time. It is simple - it is enough to enter data in CRM during operational work, and not at the end of the month from stickers and not when the general director remembers the existence of the CRM system.
- To unify the data - this question is mostly solved by entering with the help of drop-down lists (they are filled out from reference books). It’s not too lazy to fill all directories when CRM starts (in RegionSoft CRM they are filled, it remains to enter user values) and then the work will become easier, and managers will not record client status as potential, future, then, potential, soon, etc.
- Check data for duplicates, obvious errors, etc.
- Maintaining backups (backup copies) of databases is very strange, but they are often forgotten. And by the way, backup protects your valuable asset - the customer base - from both force majeure and not-so-decent employees who, for example, when they are fired, may want to spoil the data or delete it. By the way, the differentiation of access rights additionally helps protect against such problems.
Reports, visual implementation of which helps to see the gaps and achievements of the sales team. There are a lot of them (in one RegionSoft CRM there are about 20 sales reports), but there are the main ones, among which are the sales funnel . This report helps to view the progress of customers by sales stages in the context of the desired period of time, manager, industry, etc. The wider the base in relation to the neck, the higher the conversion rate, the better. You can see at what stage most customers are lost and take action. The picture shows a very primitive funnel - in fact, the user can configure any stages of sales in the CRM system (set custom client development steps in directories) and see, for example, how customers fall off during the first call, mailing, coordination of TK and so on. - on the basis of such analytics, it is possible to take measures to increase the level of conversion, working with problem stages.
The speed of sales is the most important indicator, which also falls into the reports of RegionSoft CRM (I again state that similar reports can be in other systems, we just talk specifically about our own). In general, the rate of sales depends on the industry, implementation model, other factors. Each company must know its regulatory duration of the sale process and strive not to exceed the deadlines. Of course, we are talking about standard sales. If we are dealing with complex, so-called long sales in industry, tenders, etc., then it is very difficult to focus on the average value - too many external factors affect the course of the transaction. However, it is always necessary to observe the chronology of the process (remember 50/35/15 above?) And apply those skills that promote progress from stage to stage.
In the table you can see the date of registration of the client and the time of the first sale. The interval between them is the sales cycle. And if you impose on the interval passing the sales funnel and the dynamics of development, you can check the chronology of the stages within the cycle and understand that it takes too much time.
The report shows that the efficiency of one day of work partly correlates backward with the cycle length: the longer the cycle, the lower the efficiency of one day of work. This is not a rule and not a law, but a too long cycle in relation to the company's standard is an alarm signal about the problem that caused such a delay in sales. It is necessary to analyze such cases in detail.
Another important report, which in theory is considered marketing, but in fact corrupt is ABC-analysis , it shows the proportion of customers who bring the highest revenue. Such an analysis must be carried out - so the business receives information about customers with whom it is necessary to work especially carefully, build a loyalty system, give discounts and other bonuses, provide a VIP-manager. It is convenient to view it in a table view and a pie chart view.
Another type of analytical information in sales is aggregated statistics. These are aggregated data, for example, by county, city or industry. They contribute to the assessment of the most promising areas of development, and a comparison of such analysts for different periods gives an estimate of the growth rates of each of the areas. Such reports are interesting to managers and regional managers.
In addition to standard reports in CRM, a user can write his own with the help of a report designer, use filters and save them, or upload data from a CRM system into a spreadsheet editor and build analytics in the required section.
CRM makes it easy to compare the results of historical and current sales and indicators related to sales. Since it stores historical data of the desired depth, it is always possible to compare periods, assess the effects that were at the peak of sales or at the points of fall, establish market trends. These data can form the basis of planning and forecasting - this is the basis for drawing up an adequate and feasible sales plan. You can also accumulate and analyze information by competitors.
Additional sales
Cross-Sell & Upsell is another possibility of a CRM-system for sales. On the basis of information on previously completed transactions, the manager can select a complementary product or service, prepare a commercial offer and send it to the client. In general, the manager’s awareness of the client’s background history and its mention in communication is a sign of the company's high loyalty to its customers. Sales team can track the history of purchases by customers or groups in order to determine a new point of contact in time, to offer additional products or services.
For example, a construction company shipped a brick to build a country house in April. In August, you can offer roofing materials, protective structures before the fall, facing bricks or an iron door at a discount (with or without it, or with a surcharge - here it’s a matter of conscience and seller policy). In fact, the company shares the interest of the client and tries to “help” it - it is very appealing. And valuable data on the customer's purchase profile is collected and stored in CRM.
Better upsell can only be a loyalty program. Despite the disappointing retail forecasts, discount cards, loyalty programs, points and other models of long-term friendship with the buyer continue to work successfully. The reasons for this lie both in the economic and in the psychological plane, but the post is not about that. In CRM discount cards, personal discounts and markups for customers or groups of customers are taken into account, including when creating price lists. By the way, in our case the automation of loyalty programs works with the program complex for automation of hypermarkets - RegionSoft Retail .
Once one of our employees witnessed an interesting conversation in a pharmacy: a pharmacist (A) and a client (K).
A: Is there a card for our network?
K: Oh, I left it at home. What a pity!
A: Well, you have here, in principle, anyway, without a discount.
K: And I am pleased to simply show, as if I am a regular customer of the pharmacy.
A simple example that illustrates everything. Just as we often go to those stores, the cards of which we have, although in the neighboring one everything is cheaper and adjusted for this very loyalty.
Thus, the CRM-system fits perfectly into the sales cycle, provides managers with information, accumulates and maintains the customer base. In general, it performs all the functions assigned to it by sales managers. In short, the CRM-system is definitely a sales friend.
What is wrong between CRM and salespeople?
We have already written about the typical difficulties of implementing CRM-systems, and they all apply to the sales department. Moreover, it is from him that they begin. Sales managers often see the CRM of the
Another common need for CRM users is to cram their own sales model into the system. Sales of SPIN, long sales, dealer model - according to customers, everything should be taken into account in CRM. And there are dozens of these methodologies! This approach is fundamentally wrong. CRM collects data, stores and unifies the client base, helps to create any tasks and business processes. And for what model do you use such a powerful resource - a matter of imagination and competent management of the company (who really needs it - you can enter a part of the methodology into the business process). CRM vendor in a sober mind and sound memory will never go for revision under any methodology - this is really absurd. At least until the number of these methodologies is reduced to two or three.
In a post, it is not by chance that several times a special emphasis is placed on the speed of sales. CRM automates the sales management process, thereby speeding them up. This is a key value that sales managers need to be aware of, whose task is to enter data, follow the system signals for each of the clients, and apply their persuasion and presentation skills. This approach helps the manager to close the transaction quickly and without error, and therefore, to perform KPI, make a plan and earn more.
So, briefly, what are the benefits of CRM, if it is mostly aimed at sales:
- increase sales speed and active sales cycle management
- redistribution of resources for large and profitable transactions
- truly individual customer service
- understanding customer needs in dynamics
- tremendous time saving salespeople
- reliable storage of customer base
- reduction of development costs / production / creative due to accurate forecasting and planning of the range of goods and services
- single workplace = telephony + mail + base + schedulers
- deep and accessible analytics.
We all love to create the perfect - especially those developers sin. Yes, we all often think that we have created the best product in the world, and the world will soon find out about it by itself. No, it will not know if there are no professionals who promote and sell. And behind them, too, there is a sin - it is a joke about the fact that the sales person needs only ear, mouth and telephone. 2016 , . , CRM-, . , CRM . Feel the difference?
Throughout December, we offer discounts on RegionSoft CRM and all our proprietary software. From December 1 to 15 - 15% and steep terms of installment and rental. We do not have -70% and -90%, because we keep the economically reasonable price for the license, and do not take it from the ceiling.
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Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/314130/
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